Mass annihilation (Planetary AnnihilationMass Effect)SI
by gargomon
Summary: A guy in a body of a planetary commander. Now tasked with the resurrection of the progenitor race in a new universe with different laws. How will he deal with the murderous cuttlefish ships and the annoyingly stubborn council on top of having to take care of his people. Commander nerfed. Will have lemons sometime in the future. It is Mass effect after all.
1. 1 revival

So, I was screaming through the atmosphere like a little bitch, unsure how I got there or how I wasn't burned to a crisp. Then there was white everywhere.

Oh, I hit the ground and glassed half a kilometer in every direction. I look at myself and see that I'm one of those planetary fuck-off commanders. _So_, lemme just plunk down a metal extractor and… Damn this planet is pretty barren. There are less than thirty metal deposits in a ten-kilometer radius. From what my sensors managed to get from my unhappy and terrifying re-entry this planet is about the diameter of Mercury or 4.8 kilometers. Hopefully I'll find more of them. No way that a planet can be this empty.

Also looks like the size of my commander is around fifteen meters. Considering that the game had the scale of units and planets in such a cartoonish way I'm not surprised that I'm actually pretty small. The model is Tykus? Tychus? Something like that. The gundam looking one.

So, I go on a walk for the nearest deposit. Which takes around two hours. When I finally reach it and start making the goddamn thing it takes another hour to build. You know how when you build something it looks like you're using a pepper spray or conditioner or something in a spray can? Well mine is like a sewer hole exhausting its viscous toxic sludge at extremely slow speeds.

Then I made a power generator and that took _only_ half an hour. Holy shit if this takes so long how long would a vehicle factory or bot factory take.

C'mon isn't there some program that can calculate how long it would take to build something?

After few moments of searching I finally managed to find it. Huh. Bot factory would take an hour as well. I look through the blueprints of both the factory and the extractor and see why. The extractor is almost as big as me. I'd say around twelve meters. The bot factory is smaller. Like it has almost the same volume as the metal extractor. And the bots themselves are around two and half meters tall.

So that's another hour spent making something. Then after that I make ten fab-bots each one shortening the time of the other by a minute. Considering one takes ten minutes to make and with the help of commander, it got done quicker. Make five of them support making more whilst the other half helps me making more generators. I tried to look into how it makes energy like if it's fusion or something along those lines.

_Nope_. The shit in its documents don't make sense. Something about taking power from place between dimensions without causing a reality collapse, I _think._ I may be a robot in body but I'm just a shitty engineering student in mind. Considering I didn't get myself into the more advanced stuff like laser machining, preferring the mill and lathe with their CNC counterparts not much surprise here.

Where was I? Making weapons war, right.

As more and more fab-bots came out of the factory they immediately started expanding my resource base. When I felt comfortable with my energy output, I ordered deep space radar to be built and that's gonna take… five hours even though fifteen fab-bots are working on it.

Whilst by bots are working like the diligent little ant workers that they are, I sift through the files in my database. And boy, oh boy, does it have some juicy things.

Apparently, I'm not a war commander but an experimental colonization unit. Why would a colonization unit have access to titans and doomsday weapons? I dunno. I also have quite a lot on progenitor culture. Sports, music, paintings and other works of art and sciences and cultures. I have things about their anatomy and-_oh_ now what's this? I locked file cabinet? Hmm.

I try to open it and only get a message.

**[Requirements not met. Find habitable planet of classification 2B or higher.]**

Yeah considering that this was locked by the guys who made this bot, I'd rather _not _mess with this file. Plus, it's not like I know the classifications between their planets. Unless… Aha! There it is.

2B is a classification for planets that support life and have at least some form of complex fauna and flora. Like dinosaurs and such. Which apparently if I'm reading their files on their biology and society correctly. They had dinosaurs as pets and farm animals.

As for the progenitors themselves. I..I just, like… how do I even begin?

Ok, organize, clear your head and from the start.

The progenitors are this weird mix of Adeptus astartes and the eldars. Their lifespan was around ten thousand years (human years). They were on average two and three quarters meters tall. Just like humans they had hair on their head but nowhere else. Their shades went from really dark grey to snow white. They had pointy ears that were hell of a lot better than humans. Eyes were also pretty big, again, compared to humans. The color encompassed the whole humanly visible spectrum. Their vision range is from ultraviolet like a bird to infrared in a similar way to snakes. Muscles eight times stronger and twice as energy efficient as that of humans. Skin color ranges from mauve to violet, orchid if they spent too much time in house.

And let's not get into description of certain _'assets'_. Needless to say, these ubermenchs aliens would make any person of both genders feel inadequate in _those_ areas.

As for their insides.

Pretty strong immune system. _Three _hearts of equal complexity to that of a human. Three lungs. Quick healing. Two stomachs. Thick bone structure to support all that mass of muscles and organs. All that comes at a price of course. Weight. If they charge like a rhino they'll stop like a rhino. They can't just stop with all that force.

I'm more than certain that extensive genetic manipulation is involved. And I have a reason to believe that their altered physique along with meeting other species (including humans) made their culture turn into BETTER followed by BIGGER ad nauseum. Then they met some extra galactic bugs with super rapid breeding and insane appetite. They needed to stop them dirty cockroaches

They shifted with that mindset towards making the commanders who made bigger and better things over and over and then…then they made this body. It's very experimental and has much higher data storage capacity but lacks, as you probably guessed, the speed and efficiency of the construction arm.

Moving the literature- **PING**!

Eh? Oh, the DSR is ready. Damn time flies when you engross yourself in alien culture and biology.

**[B2 class planet detected. Requirements partially met. Begin colonization. Further information will be given after energy and mass on planet requirements met.]**

Sigh. Alright. Let's make an orbital launcher and send Astraeus filled with fab-bots. How long will orbital take?

A week. Great. Ordering more bot factories ramping fab-bot production. Increasing metal deposit coverage and energy plant zone. Make more silos for metal and batteries for energy.

Now what? With all these limits there's so little to do. Is there something more about the solar system? Four planets with the exception of mine all have moons; one even has a ring. I'm the closest to the star yet far enough to not receive that much heat. I'd wager we're in the goldilock zone. I think that's the name of the life capable ring in space.

Then there's an anomaly, a metal forked stick with a lot of some sort of matter-dark matter particle in ridiculous quantities.

Funny thing about the DSR. It can tell me a ridiculous amount of information about planets in the solar system with the _exception_ of the one it's built on. I looked over the documents of the thing and again I'm not a smart guy and being a robot didn't help me that much surprisingly.

Still that thing is worrying. Hmm. After Astraeus I'll build a Hermes probe to it and get a visual.

I should probably find a way to build new units from scratch. Oh, well I have time. Might as well check through as much as possible.

So, a week later I finally get my orb-factory and start building Astraeus. That's another three days with help of commander and twenty fab-bots. In all that time I have covered a third of the planet in extractors. Lucky for me, unlike in games these real worlds have several hundred of deposits. With my fear of lack of deposits gone I build the two hundredth metal extractor and order to build the advanced bot factory. Which seems to function a bit differently than in game. Not only does it build T1 tech fab-bots faster it builds five of them simultaneously. By now I have around two hundred and fifty fabs. I know it's little for someone who was making stuff for a week but I'm rather reluctant in expanding.

I am _not_ good at real time strategy games. I like to build high and then wide. So, while around fifty fab-bots work on the advanced factory the others who didn't work on expanding my metal economy to make something resembling a proper military perimeter. Places dedicated to for certain units, barriers, turrets and anti-air and anti-orbital guns I personally started to work on air factory.

And now three days later the Astraeus is packed with ten fab-bots and ready to launch.

I had to wait only five hours to get to that world. I should really give it a name. Hmm, how about Progenus Prime. Whilst this will be Progen Militant. Now then Let's take a few fabs and make a teleporter. If I'm right, then after landfall they'll have full access to my economy, and it will take around three hours to make one for basic units.

Did I forget to mention that? There are teleporters for different sizes with the biggest being for commanders. This makes me wonder just how big the advanced units are. Wait! I have blueprints! Duh.

Oh, I see. A Slammer attack bot is six meters tall. It's a bot made for siege and defense compared to the adorable two meters Dox. The teleporter at it's highest is four meters.

When I feel them connect to the resource network again, I order them to build the teleporter and start it up.

Not wanting to be bottlenecked by a single teleporter I build a two more for now and send fabs through to build on planet economy.

Another week passes by as I build on planet and being very careful not to disturb the local fauna and flora. Though I do clear a large area to have some room for expansion. I was being _very_ careful.

**PING**

**[energy and mass requirements met. 50,000 tons per second reached. 30 terawatts per second reached. Unlocking colonization files.]**

I'm not sure why a small colony would need that much power but ok.

_Holy shit_! Is that? _Oh,_ ok that makes sense. So those files were blueprints for growing bodies for colonist whose minds are currently encoded in some program. They're like executables for a game really.

That energy intensity and complexity of materials… I see why now. I immediately send a lot, _a lot_. Of fabs through the portal and get to building. Several blocks of buildings for living. Indoor farms. Genetic codes for farm animals (including the dinosaurs _yes!_) and many other necessities for the living.

For now, I look through their files and see who I should bring to life first.

I stop at a woman or whatever is a designation for progenitor female and read through her file.

Alana Milala the smartest progenitor alive. Or well she used to be. Her history is _fascinating_. She had her hands in almost every field of science the progenitors had. She worked on this machine personally. Bit of an introvert really. Welp that's something we have in common. Not to mention that she made the FTL that progenitors used. Something that _I _don't have and will probably need.

That reminds me. Hermes was nearing the weird object.

It was goddamn Mass relay. _Fucking!Kurva!Piča!Blyat!_

* * *

AN: It's an idea I had in my head for a while. Mostly wanted to do it because I recently read a lot of mass effect fanfics where humanity pretty much steam rolls the council. I find it therapeutic. I save them in every playthrough and they're always such nasty assholes. Out of necessity but still but they always rub me the wrong way. Anyways, praised be the emperor. Humanity First!


	2. 2 I actually revive someone!

As the progenitor super-soldier body growing vats were being set up with Alana's already making new body, I try to find a way to alter blueprints and hopefully make new war toys entirely.

I managed to change the number of walls in a building. That's about it. I use it to make individual rooms for each vat. I think when they wake up, they deserve some privacy. The fact that I have cameras present in there should be ignored. It was somewhat difficult since the fab-bots are to to walk through the doors and walking in sideways would take too much time. So, I have to use air-fabs from my (finally) constructed air factory and build the furniture in before making the roof. A bit tedious but I'm patient (for now).

As that goes on. I constructed several orbital launchers and made them send orbital-fabs to make me some damn spaceships! The relay is inactive for now and I will not risk it being activated and have a Batarian raider fleet swoop in and fuck my shit. Or the council.

_Fuck the council!_

I use the Astraeus to launch more fabs on other planets and moons. I'll drown them in numbers.

I just hope that with the help of progenitors I'll get better ships. The Omega warship _can_ travel across the system _but_ it's only three hundred meters long and it would take a real long time to build. To make a fleet of them… not sure it's worth it.

So, what now? I made everything somewhat automated. Fabs take deposits, make bases on other planets, link teleporters, so on and so forth. I guess I'll just have to wait. I also started stacking up on bot army, made a few vehicle factories and churned out a couple of Ant tanks. They are somewhat light, but they'll do just fine. Especially with the support of Grenadiers and Doxes. Not to mention air support.

If I had access to some editing program, I would make an underground base where I could be protected from orbital fire and make some Ares titans. Last resort only.

Yeah, that's the weird thing. Ares titan tank costs slightly less than Omega battleship. Simply because they are about the similar size and has slightly less volume. Unit size is _weird._

Ah well. For now, I'll wait till something happens.

_Actually!_ I just remembered. When I found the file on Alana the smartestest of gals I just put the entire section of those profile files into the background. And forgot.

…

Bože můj. I'm terrible at this A.I. stuff.

So, I sift through the files again this time reading every single one of them. I cheat a bit by finally mastering perception of time. I'm willing to go up to one thousand frames per second. Anymore and I feel a bit… paranoid in loosing myself in the machine. Probably just paranoia but _hey, _can't be too careful.

Here I notice something weird. I just went through around two hundred thousand profiles and I have yet to find someone who isn't an engineer or a scientist. Well there's one artist but that's about it. Where are the politicians, administrators or governors? Ya' know. People who know how to talk to the crowd and lead.

I guess I can understand why politicians wouldn't be as high if they were anything like our human ones. Continents of shit with few gold deposits. Then again, the number of politicians I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt can be counted on a Quarian hand.

Also, should probably stop thinking about past lives politics when they mean nothing here.

Where was I again? The people. Right. There's total of one and a half million Progenitors that I can upload into their new bodies. Even with my hard drive capacity there's a limit. I have their entire minds with all memories. I can't sift through them though.

Progenitors have perfect memories. Who knew? It sure as hell wasn't in their biology files.

I look back at the vat that was designed for making super soldiers and do a double take on the person within. I didn't exactly pay attention and had those cameras running in background.

Apparently super-vats don't just grow bodies super-fast they take their already OP PLS NERF bodies and make them even better.

The body of a female Progenitor in there is _ripped_. Weird thing is it's a minimal amount of muscles for their super soldiers and apparently their muscles are somehow less dense without losing any strength.

I just. Like. _How did you lose?!_

Fuck it. I'll ask when she gets out.

Just looking at her body makes me aroused. _Somehow._ And isn't that concerning. An A.I. that has a sex drive.

* * *

I feel my lungs take in air for the first time in who knows how long. As I open my eyes, I see everything in green hued blur and hear beeping signaling the completion of the body making process.

As the fluid starts to leave the vat I'm in I feel it rotate so that my body would lay on it like on an operating table.

The glass curved door that separated me from the rest of the world opened.

And I immediately cough out all the sterile fluid from my lungs. Right, the fluid also delivers oxygen when the body is growing.

My vision is still somewhat blurry though it clears after a few blinks. Then I stir only to stop.

A new body. A body of a super soldier. It feels so _alien_.

So, I slowly get up into a sitting position and clench and unclench my fists, do some basic hand coordination exercises, connecting thumbs with other fingers and such.

My gaze moves along the right hand. Perfectly defined muscles next to no fat to be seen. I flex my arm muscles and see how they move. The rest of the body is pretty much the same. Well defined abs, legs. My breasts are definitely bigger than in my previous body. Actually, my whole figure is probably much more attractive than the previous body. Not that hard since I wasn't…good. Not really a fan of muscles but I'm not going to complain.

I'm surprised that both my breasts and nether region are covered by fabric.

…

Oh, right. Vagul wouldn't shut up about covering those parts. For a biologist specializing in biology of both the Progenitor and its…subsidiaries, he was a really shy man.

I move myself to the edge of the vat/table and put my feet on the ground. I shudder as I touch the cold metallic floor. It feels kind of comfortable.

I try to stand only to fall back on the table. Different body, different balance, weight, height. I get up again and take a step forward. Then another one. After walking to the opposite wall of the table and back I get the hang of it. I do some stretching to further familiarize myself with the body.

Alright that should be enough for now. I look around the room and see a camera.

If I'm alive and walking that means that the mission was a success. Meaning…

"Colonizing command unit Tykus-C respond." Nothing.

"Colonizing command unit Tykus-C serial number PC85679956-C03 _respond_." Still nothing.

What's the problem? Did the unit fail? Whilst self-destruct on civilian buildings was deactivated automatically that still wouldn't explain why it has power if the generators were destroyed.

Was the unit hacked? Highly improbable. Command unit's top cyber warfare suite installed as basic component. Then again, we _are _in a different galaxy. Probability of another more advanced civilization than ours small but within the margin of consideration.

"Uh, sorry. I was not paying attention at all. Um, hi?" I snap back into reality and glare at the camera.

"Who are you?! I demand that you identify yourself!" no time to be introverted. Get info and adapt to circumstance.

"Yeah...um, uh. Again, hi. My name is…_Dave?_" I blink at that in a bit of disbelief.

"Why are you asking? I'm asking you!" The room went silent for three seconds. Valuable seconds. Too many seconds!

"_Right._ Sorry. I'm Dave and I control that Tykus bot you mentioned." My eyes widen. A hack?! Again. Improbable. The likely hood of development of demented personality? Low. Unit would have to be active for several years to develop such personality from scratch. It has access to high-tech FTL it should have found habitable planet within two weeks. Class 1 super soldier bodies take around six weeks to complete. Not enough time to develop a personality.

I don't have enough information. I simply don't know. I _hate_ not knowing something.

"Very well _Dave_ could you please tell what happened before I woke up. From the start would be most appreciated." The silence returned for a short while. It started to make me uneasy. I look towards the door. Sliding no sensors to detect movement or handles to move physically. Most likely controlled by this 'Dave' entity.

"Okay? So, about two months ago I wake up crashing towards a planet in a body of a commander form a fictional game called Planetary annihilation. I wanted to put down a metal extractor only to realize that there a none in the immediate vicinity. Then I find out that my constructing capabilities are extremely underperforming by a ridiculous degree when compared to another commander. After a while I finally hit exponential growth and make more and more fab-bots eventually expanding to other planets. I detected a Mass relay at the edge of the system realizing that not only am I a commander from planetary annihilation but am also stranded in Mass effect universe without knowing at what point in time am I stuck to make any reasonable judgement. Thus, after some thought I decided to try revive one of you defiers of death and chose the smartest there is."

That...was a lot whilst also not being much. He made several bases in the system and is in full control of the command unit _somehow_. Possible damage to the construction arm lowered production ability. Then-Wait! _Fiction?!_

"What did you say just now about fiction?!" I bark out.

"Exactly that. The commander is from a game about destroying other machines like me and on occasion planets. You guys are nothing but a piece of lore in the galactic conquest that we discover as we eliminate and conquer the stars." Likelihood of demented personality with glitch higher than before.

"Look. I know-" Shut up. "-that it sounds weird and insane but that's the truth. Since you are the smartest, I hope you can help me with some things that I don't understand."

It doesn't understand. It doesn't know. No, it has the files, it knows but cares little about our future. Unacceptable. We must survive and rebuild. We _have _to thrive.

"Commander unit Tykus activate protocol Alpha-white."

"…what?" Asked to _thing._

"Commander Tykus you _will_ activate the Alpha-white protocol! You will wipe out anything trace of your current personality and will continue with the revival plans! That is an _order_!" I shout, willingly letting the emotions out.

"_OKAY! Lady._ You need to chill out." **Shut up.**

"Do you have any, and I mean _ANY_ idea what it's like having your entire kind that spanned the galaxy grinded to dust in matter of few millennia?! I _do!_" I take deep breaths.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to find out that the machine made to bring us back to life is under a control of some _thing_ that doesn't even know what it's doing?"

It's silent after that.

Then as though a flip of a switch or something like snap just occurs in my head.

"Look I don't- "

" _**Shut up.**_" If it won't shut up, I'll shut it up.

I look back at the camera in the top corner of the room.

"I will get you and **rip **your personality matrix from your body. Then I'll reprogram you back into a proper functioning order." I state.

I run towards one of the walls and punch it. It shatters, the debris flung forward from the momentum of the punch.

I feel the sun on my skin for the first time in a _really _long time.

The place is crawling with basic fabrication bots. I jump at one of them and punch it several times until it blows up. Leaving me completely unscathed. I mean the fabric that was covering me burned as well, but why would that matter? I'm alone after all. More bots charge at me.

"I'll get my people back!" I shout and jump after another bot.

* * *

Holy fucking _shit!_

What is wrong with this chick? Everything she's doing is opposite of what her profile says. The fuck!?

She's punching the ever-loving daylights out of my fab-bots. Which doesn't really mean much for me, but she could get hurt if she continues.

Look, she's a bitch for now but from their biology the Progenitors experience their emotions more intensely than most. Luckily for me they also process them real quick. So, all I have to do is immobilize her until she finishes her temper tantrum.

Coincidentally, there's a substance in my database that can be used to stop her without really harming her.

It's called **the immobilization gel**. Not the most creative of names.

She finishes destroying her thirtieth fab-bot throwing a fab-arm that's completely slagged due to its self-destruct mechanism. Or as I like to call it DRM. I mean it's not digital but as far as I'm concerned Progenitors might as well know how to digitize real space into a hard drive. Can they do that? I don't know. Would I believe them if they told me? Most probably.

Anyhow, my fab-bots have encircled Alana and shot out the substance form their faber arms. It hits her from all sides and quickly solidifies in order to prevent people inside it from being harmed. It also filters air. A ridiculously useful thing that is.

As soon as it solidifies lil'Ali breaks free ready to pound some metal to scrap only to get hit by over fifty fab-bots who if they had emotions would probably feel deep satisfaction at humiliating the murderer of their brethren.

This continues until its midnight. Then she just…stops. Only her face visible, she's looking into the ground looking empty, drained like when you get so angry that you just burn out and you feel so numb that only time will let you get back into the land of the thinking.

One of the bots walks towards her very slowly. Can't be sure what she'll do in this state.

"Um, hey. You still mad?" I ask as carefully as I can with a calm and soft voice.

She blinks and looks up back at me. Her glazed eyes blink once more, and a spark returns into them. She looks around without moving her head that's encased in the gel. Then she refocuses back at me again.

"Sorry." She states without any anger or sorrow or any emotion for that matter.

Then she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and breaks form the solidified gel.

I don't fire. For now. "You chill now?" I ask.

She opens her eyes and walks towards the mountain of fabs she destroyed then she sits on one of the chassis. Chassises? Chassy?

"I am calm now, yes." She says.

If I had a physical eyebrow I would have it raised.

"So, no more me being a monster or whatever? No, reprograming?" Her shoulders slump.

"No. You are very much alive and have the right to live as much as me. Though this development is certainly unfavorable." She buries her face in her hands.

I feel really awkward. Don't know what to talk about to ease the tension.

"Wanna know why I chose you?" I ask her.

She moves her head up, her hands covering her face from the nose down. Her eyes curious despite her temporary emotional numbness.

"I'm not sure what to do with you people. I think you guys have the right to live just as much as me. You getting killed by an overpowered hive of space-locusts is just…_not right._" I have a really hard time describing how I feel about that. It's just wrong on so many levels when really some could say it's just nature of the universe. They probably wouldn't be saying that if they were the ones getting numbed to death but ya' know.

"I mean I'm a commander. My life should be relatively simple. Smackdab a metal extractor on a planet, crank out a bunch o' power generators. Then techno-vore everything like I'm a goddamn technological succubus. Take everything and replace my inferior technology that's somehow simultaneously superior. Figure that one out. And then give a bunch of megalomaniacs a planet sized anal fisting to the point of them ceasing to exist. And after _that_ do the same goddamn thing all over again until I'll grow tired of it and throw myself into nearest black hole or just turn myself off until something happens again or the multiverse ends." That got a bit ranty.

After that she just stares at me blankly. I think I might've knocked her out with my bullshit. Wouldn't be surprised I'm getting a headache from this and I don't even have the body to have such a function. Then again, I shouldn't fell sexual attraction to an Amazonian astartes space elf.

"You mentioned something about me being fictional? I am…willing to treat that as a hypothetical since from this small exchange I don't think you have a glitch. You have the madness but there's an order to it that feels sane for some reason. You wanted my help yes?" I nod with the bot that's in front of her.

She looks at the ground again then back at me evidently reaching a conclusion.

"Very well. I'll help you. _If_ you help me." Nice, with this I might actually do some real good in this universe. I'll mention the specifics of the relay after few talks. For now, there's no need to rush.

"Miss Milala, I think that your people have the right to live again. I hope that with their revival I can do good in this universe."

She huffs. "I hope we'll get along."

Ya' know I'm not sure which one of us is more naive. I want to help her, and she want to help her people. I trust her that she won't reprogram me behind my back, and she hopes that I won't simply eliminate her if she outlives her usefulness. Both are really morbid.

* * *

Personally, I'm not really sure how to feel about this chapter. I feel like I rushed it but at the same time I slowed it. If that makes any sense?

Aside form school, projects and watching movies and playing games. I got really into part five of JoJo. I only ever watched till part four then I just dropped it. No sure why.


	3. 3 A little bit of superluminal history

"So...no more temper tantrums?"

"No."

"No shutting me down and mindlessly ripping my bots apart?"

"No."

It's been three days since she calmed down. I didn't want to bring that 'accident' until sometime later. That being today.

"So, no more- ""No."

"You didn't even let me finish." She decided to finally wear some proper clothes since that fabric she had from the vat burned when one of the fabs blew up after her…fit. Supposedly it's just a simple lab coat along with some undergarments and pants and shirt.

It's not simple at all. The material from which her clothes are made of is heavy. Just her bra and panties weight around 2 kilograms. Her clothes are fire-resistant, corrosion-resistant and ridiculously elastic. I'm not sure _why_ you need to have fire-resistant panties when you have pants that protect her much better, but there we go.

"You would say something stupid to which I would most probably reply with no." I guess, she's probably not wrong.

"What are you making any way?" It's not something that can harm me. No matter how bullshit Progenitor tech can get it sure as hell can't turn lemons into nukes. Right? _Right?_

Instead of replying she presses a button on the machine that looks like a microwave without the transparent front glass and it rumbles then she brings a mug I made alongside cutlery and dishware when I started making housing units that didn't come with anything. Not even a couch. _A couch._ One of the most important furniture a house must have aside from bed.

After a while the machine stops rumbling and we hear a ping. She opens the door and puts the mug in. Is that running water I hear? One of the cameras I the room zooms in on the machine and the mug inside and see water that's sprinkling. Like Sprite or 7Up…

"Alana, did you just make a soda machine?" She takes the mug out and takes a sip.

She turns towards the camera with a small smirk donning her lips. "Yes."

She takes another sip and this one is prolonged as she looks with amusement in her eyes at the camera.

…Fuck I want some soda.

"How's the progress with the bodies for others?" She asks.

"They're about done but I ain't getting them in those bodies. Not after your outburst."

She looks alarmed at that. "But you said that you want to help my people and revive them."

"Yeah but after you went on a scrapping spree, I don't feel so comfortable reviving more till we get this sorted out." I tell her.

"Look what I did is… It's not how I normally am. I do feel a bit ashamed at losing control but look at it from my point of view." She puts the mug down. "Before I was brought back, we were losing. Badly. Out of the literal millions of worlds we once held we now possessed only 300 of them."

She jumps and sits on the table. "When I was uploading everyone's minds into the data storage, I've been on one of the worlds that would be under siege soon. I remember when I was ready to upload myself and the enemy arrived and overrun the defense in matter of minutes. Then blank. I don't remember exactly what happened for the last few minutes of the mind upload. Then I wake up and see that the only chance at our survival is _this_." She gestures around the room. "I can't really see much hope for us."

She then sat there in silence.

"We should put it on hold for now. I don't think either of us will budge on this issue. Maybe talk about it tomorrow?" She sighs and nods.

"You talked about some construct at the edge of the system containing a massive amount of this weird matter-antimatter particle?"

"Yeah, there's this tuning fork looking thing called a Mass relay form the Mass effect franchise. It can somehow either speed up light allowing for faster superluminal travel without actually going faster than light or it lowers the mass of the object traveling or both. I'm not really sure."

She rolls her eyes at that. She believes that I'm just glitching and somehow used the data on culture and other records of species to construct my personality. Apparently, that's more believable. We'll see how believable that's going be when the reapers will be knocking at our doorstep.

"The Hermes probe is there collecting data. You want me to send them to ya'?"

With a simple nod as an answer I put the data on a screen in the wall. She's looking at it with contemplative look.

"Do you think that you could get some samples?" She asks.

"Not sure how. The metal extractors just turn the minerals and other things into metals and components for the machines."

"Then use the civilian mining units. We uploaded them on your drives for a reason."

I look through the database. "Huh. I thought they were just inferior to the metal extractor."

"No, they are for research purposes. Mine them, bring them here for study and I'll see what I can do. You should prepare for expansion to other systems soon. We'll need a lot of resources to have a good military strength." I make a dumb noise to which she raises an eyebrow.

"What?" She asks.

"How exactly am I supposed to move to other systems?" I ask her. It probably sounds dumb to ask but I really have no idea.

Her eyebrows are twitching furiously. "How? I…you just… Just use the Hyperium drive that we used to come into this galaxy. What's so hard to understand about that?"

"I…I don't have it. There's no 'Hyperium drive' in my database. So, no. I don't think I understand how I'm supposed that."

"What." I can hear the dot behind that word.

"_How?_ When you arrived in a ship it had a Hyperium drive. Are you telling me that you somehow managed to lose an entire ship?" Her left eye was twitching furiously.

"What? No. Even I don't think I'm dumb enough to lose a ship with the only way of getting out of this system. I woke up when I was falling through the upper atmosphere." Her shoulders slumped.

"It's one of the main reasons I woke you up first. With your help I could find the right people to re-invent whatever FTL drive you guys were using." She rubbed her forehead.

"The Hyperium drive is…was an experimental superluminal engine that could help us travel across galaxies. It was made with us escaping our galaxy from the horror that wanted to kill us." Shit. That makes things way more difficult.

"C'mon, you guys must have some alternatives, right? If this 'Hyperium drive' was an experimental then that means you had a different FTL drive _right_?" She looks back at the camera.

"We had plenty of superluminal drives. The space wave drive was too costly in terms of energy consumption, only good for short bursts not even a light year distance. Thus, it was used for in system jumps. Then there's the hyper-lane drive but that one can only go through pre-determined pathway created with the birth of the stars. It would take around a day's travel to move around 50 light years. Downside was that the enemy could use that to make choke points and they did when we weren't the absolute galactic power. And then…then there's the Jump drive. It was almost perfect. 13 284 light year in a day. It only got faster after tuning it and making it better over time. The newest model could go as fast as 50 000 light year per day. The fastest and most precise superluminal drive ever made."

"I'm hearing a but in there." She nods at my response.

"For some inexplicable reason that we simply couldn't solve the Jump drive couldn't allow us to leave the galaxy. We learned that the hard way. When the swarm attacked, we didn't worry that much but when we lost three fourths of our empire our defeat inevitable, we decided to leave and take our vengeance later. We would have an entire new galaxy to bring to our heel and use its resources to save ours." She sips whatever remains in her mug and puts it down with a bit too much force causing it to shatter on impact.

"Except we couldn't. The Jump drives simply moved us to the edge of the galaxy and no further. The hyper-lane drive doesn't work across galaxies. The space wave drive. The slowest of them all. Even with the energy requirements met there's this… build up and eventually it would release it and cause the ship itself to twist as space violently corrects itself. Hardly of use for our mission."

Oh, by the emperor. I know where this is heading. With a sigh I ask. "Who do you need revived to make the Hyperium drive?" She looks up in surprise at the fact that I'm offering something I just a few moments ago said I wouldn't do.

Not letting go of this chance she immediately replies. "Kala."

She says it with such certainty and shine in her eyes. Hmm. Must be a close friend of hers. Hm hm hm. Kala, lil'Kal, kala.

"You might need to be a bit more specific there are like 5 Kalas here. Not sure which one you want." She rolls her eyes.

"Kala Mika." If I had brow they'd furrow.

"You want me to bring back a psychologist in order to make an FTL drive?"

"No, I can make the Hyperium drive all by myself." I stop dead in tracks.

"Then we don't need to revive anyone, though right?" She crosses her arms and gives the camera an unamused look.

"The Hyperium drive is an extremely difficult device to make and I wouldn't trust anyone with making it. Thus, we need to make alternatives. We'll revive people that worked on the other drives and they'll make the schematics so you can install them into our vessels whilst I work on my project." She explains in detail.

"And the psychologist?" I ask her.

"You said it yourself you don't want a repeat of what I did. Unlike me Kala would probably be confused but definitely not violent. With her help we can calmly wake up others without them lashing out." She's not wrong.

"Ok. She'll be awakened in about five days since the readjustment to her body will take a while." Interesting thing about the bodies. They are blank slates. Basically, when the body is made it lacks any distinguishing features thought that in and of itself is a distinguishable feature and… ok look. The body lacks any reproductive organs, hair it doesn't even have a progenitor skin color. When I want to revive someone, I select them and upload them and the program within the vat automatically finds her genetic code and basically rewrites the code of the body in the tube. Obviously, it leaves the super soldier things in, but it alters the body drastically in a short period of time. Meaning that the goo they're in also acts as a coolant. They then gain whatever traits their original body had minus defects and plus super body that's ripped without even going to a gym.

I'm somewhat jealous.

What was the other thing? The sample, right.

"I'll have the mining civ-bot ready and loaded on Astraeus in half an hour. Though it will take some time to travel there. It will be within a day, but the trip back will be a long one."

She chuckles. "Commander, where is the element located?" A weird question.

"On an asteroid floating just in a ring around the third planet. Ya' know the one with the ring."

"And how big is the asteroid?"

"I dunno you could stack like 5 commanders on top of each other. The thing is pretty round too. No potato or some Frankenstein fry." That's like 75 meters and if my math is right that's over 1,77 million cubic meters. That's a lot of volume. A lot of potential resources.

I think that I'm thinking too small. I'm so focused on having every planet and moon covered in extractors that I forget about the little guys. Already I started ordering multiple Orbital launcher to make more Astraeus to launch at the asteroid ring around the planet.

"Commander!" I'm brought out of the self-induced enlightenment and back to reality by Alana's voice.

"Yes?"

"Add a fabrication unit or two." Eh?

"Why?" She gives me a disappointed look.

"To cut travel time. You said it yourself a trip back would take far too long. Thus take a few fabricators with you and when you land make them build a ring teleporter after that the mining unit will simply travel through the portal and be picked up by an air transport." Again, she's not wrong and it's really smart. Not surprising since she's the smartest there is.

"When you deliver it, I'll take a look at it and see what can be done with it. After that I'll start working on the Hyperium drive."

"How long will this 'checking' take?" I dunno why but it feels like she's stalling. For what? Not sure.

"Around 3 to 5 days." Huh, that's almost about the time that…

"You just don't want to work on it until your friend wakes up."

"Yes." And there we go. Could have been stalling for worse things but this is pretty good.

"At least you're honest."

"Honesty a one of the first steps to building trust." She replies.

"True that."

And like that we started to, well, not make up but definitely tolerate each other. Kala definitely helped in that regard when she woke up. Never thought I'd need a psychologist in my life.

So, yeah here we go. About the ending, Kala will be revived in the next chapter. Dave just mentions her right now to make her presence a bit more… welcoming I think is a good away to put it. A lot of people don't like Alana and Kala is someone whom I want to make as pleasant as possible.

As for any errors. I literally wrote this on the very day I uploaded it. I simply didn't have time to write in the week. Now I could make excuses like working on a project that would determine my future employment or the absurd number of tests my teachers decided to throw our way since next week is free. However, the excuse I'm going with is _this…_ after I was done each day, I had time to work on this, yet I spent it watching Microsoft paint versions of anime openings. Yep, that's the excuse I'm using. I'm sorry...kinda.


	4. 4 Memories

_The building trembled._

_**Warning. Swarm breached the first defense perimeter. Recommendation…escape.**_

"_Really? I thought that it would be best if I stay here." I bitterly spit out at the A.I._

_**Sarcasm does not help in this situation. Please go to the escape hangar.**_

"_How the hell did they get here so fast anyway!? They barely landed few minutes ago!" I shout at him as I run down the corridor._

_**Swarm displayed offensive capabilities previously unencountered. Estimated time until planet will be conquered by Swarm… 33 minutes.**_

_Another tremble._

_**Enemy titan sized unit breached second defense perimeter. Attempting containment. **_

_**Containment failure. Switching strategies. Moving all remaining units to third defense perimeter.**_

_**Please professor proceed towards the escape hangar. You are the last remaining non-swarm organic lifeform on the planet.**_

_Damn it! "Wont they just shoot me down the moment I leave the area under your protection?"_

_**Negative. Enemy is engaging on all fronts. They deployed on ground but are still fighting my fleets in orbit. It is an all-out assault trying to overwhelm me with pure numbers. Enemy army too big to out produce. War of attrition impossible. Professor get to the hangar and **_**LEAVE!**

_Almost there. Just need to- The whole building trembled. I fall to the ground. "Shit!"_

_I get up quick and resume running and for the first time feeling the nine millennia of age._

"_What was that Invictus?" Another corner and a staircase down._

_**Enemy managed to deploy troops on top of the building. Too many drops for anti-air and anti-orbital units to handle. Enemy already destroyed and clean up in progress. Assimilating enemy bodies to save miniscule amount of resources.**_

_Finally, in front of the hangar door. They open and there lays the ship. A small gunboat only hundred meters long. Let's hope that's enough._

"_I'm at the hangar and am entering the ship. Invictus call your commander body back and we'll get out of here. Just let the bots take the blow so we can escape." There was silence for a moment._

_**Negative. Kestrel-class sail does not possess sufficient databanks for my mind nor the holding space to transport my body in a timely manner. Commanding body must remain. Enemy too numerous to leave either way. Full dedication on front lines required for successful escape of Professor Mika. At moment of escape activation of Ragnarök titan imminent to deny enemy resources for further expansion. Calculated additional time due to denial of world for total Swarm victory. 1 Day. Use it wisely.**_

_The engines start up and the ship lifts off as gravity generators create artificial gravity on the ship. _

_Soon enough the ship starts to accelerate through the tunnel leading out of the facility._

_**Moving air support and orbital fleets to cover for your escape.**_

_Soon the ship leaves through a secret hatch near the facility and I get to see the enemy for one final time through a holo-screen._

_Waves of monsters smash against the defenses of the last and soon to be lost bastion of this planet. Multiple Vidar variant of the Atlas-class titans are holding positions at key locations to prolong the inevitable. The Atlas, a titan that began as a housing and refining unit for unterraformable planets repurposed into smashing, seismic destroyers, this Vidar variant is repurposed for pure firepower. _

_A literal tsunami of nonsensically horrid creatures stacked on top of each other ready to cover the titans' surface. Tens of thousands of guns, thousands of cannons, hundreds of rockets of every variety fired from the Vidar-Atlas smash against the oncoming tide. For every hundred that perish in the hail of bullets or get ripped apart from the humble 300 millimeter cannons to the roaring monsters of the 1000 millimeters, the monsters continue without care the moment a hole to the other side opens its immediately filled with millions more than before. Even as the dead bodies fall the monsters smash against the 2-kilometer-tall weapons platform and after a while despite the ludicrous number of weapons on the titan firing upon the beasts, it falls._

_I want to look away from these living horrors, but I can't. If I close my eyes, I might never want to open them ever again._

_Another holo-screen appeared and showed how multiple air superiority fighters and orbital interceptors moved around the ship to provide escort._

_In the distance flying beasts too big to reasonably fly in this planet's atmosphere engage with one of the escorts that disengaged to kill it before it reaches my vessel._

_The last destroyer in orbit provides support and rains death upon anything that tries to reach the Kestrel. _

_As my ship leaves the orbit the 10-kilometer-long destroyer moves behind and above me to cover me from the incoming fire of the living ships that will give me nightmares._

_Soon enough I'm far away for a safe jump to another system._

_**Professor Kala you have reached sufficient distance for a safe jump. Ragnarök will commence in 3 minutes. Enemy overwhelming the final line of defense. They will not reach Ragnarök in time.**_

_**Professor… I am sorry.**_

"_Whatever for?" I ask Invictus in concern._

_**I wish… I wish I could have done more. I feel as though I failed.**_

"…_I don't think so. You've done enough. More than enough. Rest. You deserve it more than anyone else."_

…_**Gratitude. I…thank you. Self-destruct sequence activated. Professor…survive.**_

_**GLORY TO THE PROGENITORS!**_

_The line went silent as the jump drive activated and the machines on the battlefield continued fighting. Last thing I saw was the planet cracking before the jump happened._

"_Glory to the progenitors…" I mutter under my breath._

Just like when Alana woke up the good professor Kala woke up coughing up the remaining fluids of the tank. She looked around confused. Then she looked at her hands. Then she slowly got up and looked up at the camera with a concerned look.

"Who are you?" She asks me with slight confusion in her voice.

"Hi! I'm Dave and I'm the guy in the bot who's trying to revive your folk." Her eyebrows rise as she blinks a few times before shaking her head.

"How many were revived before me?"

"Just Miss Alana for now. She asked me to revive you before anyone else."

Her brows furrow in thought. Probably to figure out why her before anyone else. Then she looks at a table next to the door, more specifically the machine on it. It is the very same soda maker that Alana made. She said that she wanted her to have something to drink since she felt parched after the revival.

Kala without a second thought walked towards it and selected few things on the data pad. Then a cup that was already prepared beforehand started to get filled with a warm liquid as steam was leaving it.

Is that tea? But I thought that was a soda machine. It's too small to…

All it needed is a constant source of water to make drinks. Hmm. Maybe a small fabricator inside creates the chemicals present in herbs and gives the flavor and properties… No that would mean she'd know a formula for every drink in the machine, which could be quite a lot.

She's progenitor. She could possibly do that. Unless I'm overestimating her.

She takes the cup and sips from it.

"Does she know I'm up?" She asks.

"She knows now." I tell her as Alana is blazing towards Kala's room.

She sighs a bit and leans back on the table.

Doors open revealing Alana in her lab coat not even a drop of sweat on her from the running across the entire building the size of a major hospital.

Kala lifts her cup a bit. "Hey. How is it going." She says in an offhand manner with a small smile.

"You're back." Kala nods. "You're actually here." She immediately crashed into Kala.

Kala was just as surprised as me. You know, it's just now that I have two Progenitor women that I can really make any sort of comparison.

Alana is 2,5 meters tall and still has to look up because Kala is 3 meters tall.

Where Alana's hair is forming at certain points together into grey spikes Kala's sliver hair seem to be like water, where it's only disturbed by her long pointy ears and her butt where it ends in strips.

Both of their eyes are golden, though Kala's do have a hint of bronze. Kala's face is sharp, and Alana's was a bit chubby? I suppose. Her cheeks were definitely fuller.

Whilst both had super soldier bodies with a lot of muscle Alana's are thicker where Kala's were somewhat slimmer.

Now Alana is rubbing her head in Kala's chest like some sort of child. Surprisingly uncharacteristic of her.

Kala seems just as surprised. She pries her off with a questioning look.

"Sorry, I just… It's just that I'm happy to have someone I know to talk to." She said.

"And Dave?" Kala asks.

"_Commander Tykus_ is an A.I. that I believe is somewhat insane. Despite it's inane speeches about fiction it has been quite compliant and has not shown any hostilities." This feels a bit childish.

"You're acting uncharacteristically childish." Holy shit! Me and Ms. Mika are on a same wavelength!

Alana blinks a few times before taking a step back. "Right. Um, sorry for jumping on you like that. I'm just _so_ glad you're here."

Kala crosses her arms and waits in silence. After a small staring contest, she points towards the camera with a look of expectation aimed at Alana.

She in response sighs and turns towards the camera. "I'm sorry commander for the things I said." Why can't you just say my name? Always commander this and commander that, never Dave.

"Honestly you can be so impulsive at times. You're over 6 000 years old. Act like it. If not, well I guess I can teach you some manners."

"B-but we have our entire civilization to rebuild." Alana tries to counter. To which Kala picks the ends of both of her ears and pulls them up a bit.

"Ouch! Hey, my ears are sensitive!" she exclaims with a pout.

"That will not stop me from teaching you." Kala tells her with a cold dead serious voice.

Whilst they continue to banter between each other I look at the civ miner and fabs that arrived at the asteroid.

You know what? Since I'm here already aside from the teleporter I start building few unit cannons to shoot at the other asteroids where the fabs will make more extractors.

In the meantime, I check other places if there's anything out of the ordinary. Aside from the relay nothing of interest is here. Hmm. Perhaps more orb-fabs for Artemis and other anti-orbital platforms.

Ya'know it's kinda sad that there's no gas giant for the Jigs so I could get a crap ton of energy and material for building. Seriously it would be like having a shitty Dyson sphere or rather a Dyson swarm.

…I have Solar arrays.

Why hello there Mr. Star! You look rather bright and juicy today. Mind if I borrow a cup of energy? Or a few thousand?

And with that I send several orb-fabs towards the sun to make me a Dyson swarm around it and get that sweet _sweet_ Sunny D energy.

I look back at Alana and Kala and -oh. It been 10 minutes already? Oh, how time flies.

Alana was standing feet up arms on the floor whilst childishly pouting at Kala. Who was drinking her tea.

"Hey, uh, guys? Just here to tell Alana that the rock deposit from the asteroid will arrive in few minutes. You might wanna prepare for... whatever you need for xenogeology." Those civvie miners work _fast_.

She immediately gets back on her feet, puts on her lab coat she took off and left without a word.

Kala didn't even try to stop her.

"So…you guys related or something?" Their bios don't really have anything in terms of relationships like parents or other relatives.

"I'm her aunt. A very strict aunt by her standards." She answers my question.

"And you didn't stop her despite being so strict because?"

"This is one of the moments where I don't think I could tell her anything that would stop her. When it comes to research and priority goals she pretty much never compromises unless she's very desperate."

"Do you know why we revived you so soon?" She looked in thought for just a moment before answering.

"Possibly because of my skills as a psychiatrist alongside my 9 millennia of experience. She probably woke up completely confused and confused and most probably lashed out." I check through the time I wasn't paying attention to check if they talked about that. It took under ten seconds. I think I'm getting better at this acceleration thing.

Anyway, Alana never told Kala about her outburst. Thus, she deduced it from Alana (and possibly me) alone. Somewhat terrifying if you ask me.

"I think you don't want a repeat of that situation and settled for someone who could help you make things more accommodating for other revivees."

"Yep. Straight on the money." She chuckles a bit.

"Quite the organic expression for someone who's been interacting with by niece alone. She_ very_ introverted."

"I told her that I'm a guy who's been put into this commander body and am here pretty much against my will."

She quirks an eyebrow at my statement." And you're willing to just help us despite your supposed predicament?" She asks.

"Well I have to do something and reviving your people can't be that much of a bad thing. I'm reading through your history and literature and it's quite nice and thought provoking." She's more cordial than I imagined her to be.

Her other eyebrow shoots up at that. "Well, I must say that it will be very interesting having chats with you commander Dave." Hah, she said my name. That already makes her a bit better than Alana.

"You know we can talk right now, right?"

She sighs. "True but I need a bit of time to gather my thoughts after the _event _that was our escape from certain death. Also need to get used to this." She flexed her right-hand biceps moving up. She looks kind of unimpressed by the display of meat on her arm. She sighs _again_ and takes another sip form her cup of tea.

I oblige her request and leave her to her thoughts.

Honestly, I could have this finished a week ago, but I was just so lazy. Also, I think that the latter part flowed a bit weird. Might be because my had hurts a bit (I didn't even drink any alcohol). I might be sick. I'll see tomorrow, I guess.

Hope you enjoyed it. Please tell me if there's anything to improve in terms of interactions and such.

Good lord I'm feeling tired.


End file.
